


when we want to be rescued

by tozier



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Inspired by Richard Siken, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 08:02:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20671991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tozier/pseuds/tozier
Summary: Eddie’s brain, he has learned, isn’t something that likes to remember. He’s realized this since being back in Derry, but it's safer to forget.Of course, this was before Richie Tozier.Prompt: "you see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together. But you know how I am. I push too hard. Oh, the things we invent when we want to be rescued. I am sad and angry and I want everyone to be alive again."





	when we want to be rescued

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ssstrychnine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssstrychnine/gifts).
  * Translation into Español available: [cuando queremos ser rescatados](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21440044) by [transatlantyks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/transatlantyks/pseuds/transatlantyks)

> love u billie darling.

Eddie’s brain, he has learned, isn’t something that likes to remember. He’s realized this since being back in Derry, but it's safer to forget.

When he forgot, he could assemble his life into whatever he wanted it to be, be whatever was safest for him to be, live however he wanted to live. Perhaps not how he  _ wanted _ to live, because he doesn’t remember the last time he truly  _ wanted _ something. The prospect alone is horrifying. He’s numbed himself to the world at large, and that is the only way he’s learned he can survive. But he lived how he  _ needed _ to live.

Of course, this was all before he remembered.

Of course, this was all before Richie Tozier.

Richie is a passionate man. He’s loud and boisterous. He’s an impertinent wiseacre whose tactlessness led Eddie to become passionate in response. Eddie is only passionate when there’s an impetus, a reason to be. Eddie is not passionate the way Richie is passionate; he can only access his passion when somebody siphons it out of him.

Myra would be horrified to see the man she married be so big, so bold, so angry, so goddamn  _ loud  _ the way Richie makes him. Richie takes Eddie’s emotions and dials them all up to 100. Eddie isn’t normally a romantic, but the possibility of dying in the same place he forgot he grew up with the same people who saved him before is enough to make him want to romanticize the dire situation. Eddie isn’t normally angry, but Richie says horrible things with such brashness, some audacity inside him that makes him live his life as loudly as possible so nobody looks at the man behind the curtain, and it’s _te_ _ rrifying, _ it’s  _ beautiful, _ and it makes Eddie  _ furious. _

There is nobody on earth, not even the clown, that makes Eddie feel so many things all at once like Richie can. Before he remembered, he didn’t even think he had the capability of feeling this massively.

He remembers being 12 and ignoring all the love he felt for Richie Tozier, yelling at him instead of kissing him. He remembers being 13 and screaming that he was going to kill the clown because it tried to hurt his friends. He remembers being 14 and sobbing with all his belongings packed into his mother's hatchback because he would be losing all the people that made his life worth living. He remembers being 40 and crashing his car because he _remembered_ all his friends that made his life worth living. Memory, he thinks, has always been something worth running from because he had so much more he'd like to remember than he'd like to forget, and it's safer for him to pretend that isn't true. He hasn't wanted to remember because he convinced himself he likes his life better when he's numb to all its horrors.

And if he were asked, he would tell everyone who questioned him, even Myra, that it’s  _ Richie’s fault _ that Eddie kisses him in the dark, dank, cavernous underbelly of Derry, Maine. Of course, he knows this isn't true, but he'd do anything to avoid the fire inside him that Richie stokes.

Richie is caught in the deadlights. Richie is floating, up, up, is seeing through time and space with his not-eyes, is  _ fucking dying, again, _ and Eddie wants to cry. Where’s Ben? Why can’t he save Richie again? He’s already proven himself more than capable of completing the task. Where’s Bev, she and Richie are best friends, they have that special cosmic connection that Eddie can’t touch. Where’s Mike—he brought them all back here, shouldn’t he be the one saving them? Where’s Bill, their fearless leader? Where’s  _ Stan?  _ Eddie isn’t brave, Richie was wrong—he’s weak and hollow and wants to be rescued.

But his friends are seemingly busy on the opposite side of the cistern, or being lowered into the ground by their grieving wives, and Eddie is sad, he’s  _ angry,  _ and he doesn’t want to walk out of here alone. He doesn’t want to walk out of here without  _ Richie.  _

He looks down at the spear in his hand.  _ This kills monsters; if you believe it does. _ Bev, Richie’s best friend, gave him the spear that could save his life. 

“If you believe it does.”

He snatches off his head lamp and throws it to the ground.

“If you believe it does.”

He wrestles his wedding ring off his fourth finger, and tosses it in the same direction.

_ “If you believe it does.” _

It seems as though his demons are so much harder to outrun than Pennywise could’ve ever dreamed.

He throws the spear.

Richie falls to the ground, and Eddie goes to him. He straddles Richie’s hips, cups his face, and screams, “Richie! Richie, oh my God. Tell me you’re alive. Open your stupid eyes right now, because that dumbass clown is not  _ taking you from me, _ you hear me? You fucking idiot,” he says, “you beautiful fucking  _ moron.” _

“Stupid fucking clown!” Eddie hears Beverly yell from across the cistern. “You are not taking Richie from me! You  _ won’t! _ Asshole!”

“Fucking asshole!” Bill echoes. “You stole my b-br-br-brother from me, you’re not stealing anybody else! You’re not st-st-strong enough!”

But Eddie isn’t paying attention anymore, because Richie’s opened his stupid, beautiful,  _ perfect _ eyes, and Eddie is sunk. He’s screwed. Richie smiles, and Eddie is  _ furious _ that Richie Tozier woke his cold, ugly heart.

“Perfect bastard,” he curses, and swoops down and presses his mouth to Richie’s.

He can feel Richie take a stuttering gasp, breathing in Eddie’s air, the best and worst sort of intimacy Eddie has ever been awarded. The stone above them is struck at the same moment, a thrash from Pennywise, and neither of them notice. They don’t care. The clown roars in anger when it can feel they aren’t scared. Eddie smirks against Richie’s mouth; good. 

Richie curls one fist into Eddie’s hoodie and reels him in closer. It’s their mouths moving together, hungry and unpracticed and desperate as all hell, and it’s Eddie nipping at Richie’s lower lip. It’s Richie being unable to breathe unless he’s gasping for breath, and him being so overstimulated by everything that’s happening that Eddie can feel Richie’s tears hitting his hands. It’s uncoordinated and terrible and the best thing that’s ever happened to either of them. Eddie swipes his tongue across the seam of Richie's mouth, and Richie shudders, shakes, spins. They kiss for minutes, for hours, for days. It's an endless, ephemeral thing that is both fleeting and forever all at once. It's incredible. Eddie never wants to do anything else. Fuck Richie Tozier for being so passionate that he infected Eddie with it.

Eddie pulls back when Richie takes in a particularly strong gasp, and looks down at his best friend who he forgot existed. He looks positively  _ wrecked, _ looks like he just saw every possible future and past that ever is or ever was and still can’t believe that Eddie kissed him. Fuck, Eddie loves him.

They could die at any moment, so Eddie smiles at him and says, “If we ever get out of here, I’m going to do that again.”

“That a promise?” Richie breathes, chest heaving, glasses askew, mouth ajar. And then he smiles too, and fuck, Eddie  _ loves him. _

“It’s an oath, motherfucker.”

He ambles up, offers his hand to Richie, and Richie takes it. "Let's go kill that fucking clown."

"That's my line."

"Tough fucking luck." They smile at one another, and Eddie can't _wait_ to feel this much for the rest of his stupid fucking life.

**Author's Note:**

> here's [other places to find me](http://rebecca.carrd.co).


End file.
